Narendra Modi mentioned wife in poll affidavit after SC order on full disclosure

A day after Narendra Modi mentioned his wife Jashodaben for the first time in an election affidavit, the brother of the BJPâ€™s prime ministerial candidate issued a statement, describing the marriage as â€œchild marriageâ€.

The acknowledgement of his married status by Modi follows a Supreme Court judgment â€” and subsequent order by the Election Commission â€” in September 2013, making it mandatory for candidates to fill in their affidavits fully.

Modi has always left the column for information on marital status in his affidavits blank, marking the space with a short dash. This is the first time that he has publicly acknowledged the existence of his wife.

An Ahmedabad-based member of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Nishant Verma, on Thursday asked the Election Commission to set aside Modiâ€™s victory in the 2012 Gujarat assembly election and cancel his nomination for the Vadodara Lok Sabha seat for making it look â€œas if he got married in 2014â€.

Sources in the poll panel, however, said in Delhi that no action could be taken against Modi on the grounds that he did not provide information about his marital status while filing his nomination for earlier elections.

â€œThe new guidelines took effect from last year. We are not concerned with what happened before that,â€ a top EC official said. In Ahmedabad, Gujarat Chief Electoral Officer Anita Karwal said the EC did not have the jurisdiction to cancel an election result.

In his statement issued on Thursday, Modiâ€™s elder brother Somabhai Modi explained the circumstances of Modiâ€™s wedding to Jashodaben, and â€œappealed with folded hands to all Indians on behalf of the family not to weigh Shri Narendrabhai Modiâ€™s current position and reputation vis-Ã -vis events that happened in his childhood, almost 45-50 years agoâ€.

Somabhai, 71, said that â€œthis marriage, in his (Modiâ€™s) childhood, to Jashodaben Chimanbhai Modi, was a formal ritual because Narendrabhai had already left home thenâ€.

The four brothers and sister belonged to a â€œpoor, conservative family with illiterate parentsâ€, Somabhai said, adding that Modi was â€œdifferent from the rest of the siblingsâ€. â€œHe was greatly inspired by the sacrifices of Swami Vivekananda and Buddha,â€ Somabhai said.

Their parents, however, did not understand that Modi was different from the rest of the children, and got him married at a young age, Somabhai said. â€œJashodaben too had moved to her parentsâ€™ home and dedicated her life to the field of education,â€ the letter, written in Hindi, said.

Reached for a comment on Thursday, Somabhai told The Indian Express with folded hands, â€œI have said what I have saidâ€.

Even though the statement was released by the Gujarat BJP, the state president of the party, Ranchoddas Faldu denied knowledge of its contents. â€œI have been campaigning in Talaja. I am not aware of the details,â€ he said.

In guidelines issued on September 30, 2013, the Election Commission made it mandatory for candidates to fill all columns in their affidavits. In case information was not available, candidates are required to write â€˜Noâ€™ or â€˜Not Applicableâ€™. Candidates must also submit a signed checklist, stating that all columns in the affidavit in Form 26 have been filled.

In case a candidate leaves a column blank, it is incumbent upon the returning officer to bring it to his/her notice, and ask for an amended affidavit.

â€œIf a candidate fails to fill in the blanks even after the reminder by the returning officer, the nomination paper is fit to be rejected,â€ the EC guidelines said.

The guidelines were issued after the Supreme Court ruled on September 13, 2013, that â€œThe voter has the elementary right to know full particulars of a candidateâ€¦ It is held that right to know about the candidate is a natural right flowing from the concept of democracy and is an integral part of Article 19(1) (a) of the Constitution.â€

The court added, â€œâ€¦The returning officer can very well compel a candidate to furnish the relevant information. Filing of affidavit with blank particulars will render the affidavit nugatoryâ€¦ If a candidate fails to fill the blanks even after the reminder by the returning officer, the nomination paper is fit to be rejected.â€

The man she claims is still her â€œhusbandâ€ is the BJPâ€™s prime ministerial candidate and is considered the frontrunner for the top job this year. But Jashodaben, 62, a retired school teacher who was married to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi when she was 17 â€” and separated after about three years â€” is far removed from the rough and tumble of politics.

She gets a monthly pension of Rs 14,000, lives mostly with a brother and spends much of her time in prayer. In Ahmedabad to visit her extended family, she agreed to be interviewed by The Indian Express but refused to be photographed. Excerpts from her first interview since Modi was named PM candidate:

For how long were you married and what is the status of the marriage?

We married when I was 17â€¦ I had quit studies once I went to his place and remember him saying he wanted me to pursue my education. He would mostly talk to me about completing my education. Initially he took interest in talking to me and even in the affairs of the kitchen.

Do you feel burdened by the relationship, especially when the media asks you about your strained relationship? Are you instructed to remain low profile?
We have never been in touch and we parted on good terms as there were never any fights between us. I will not make up things that are not true. In three years, we may have been together for all of three months. There has been no communication from his end to this day.

Do you track the news about Narendra Modi?

Yes, I read everything that I can get my hands on. I read all the newspaper articles and also watch news on the television and like to read about him.

If he becomes the next Prime Minister and moves to Delhi, would you like to go back to him, if he calls you back? Will you try and meet him?

have never gone to meet him and we have never been in touch. I donâ€™t think he will ever call me. In whatever I say, I do not want it to harm him. I just wish that he progresses in whatever he does. I know he will become PM one day!

Did he ever tell you he was leaving you or quitting the marriage?

He told me once that â€œI will be travelling across the country and will go as and where I please; what will you do following me?â€ When I came to Vadnagar to live with his family, he told me â€œwhy did you come to your in-lawsâ€™ house when you are still so young, you must instead focus on pursuing your studiesâ€. The decision to leave was my own and there was never any conflict between us. He never spoke to me about the RSS or about his political leanings. When he told me he would be moving around the country as he wished, I told him I would like to join him. However, on many occasions when I went to my in-lawsâ€™ place, he would not be present and he stopped coming there. He used to spend a lot of time in RSS shakhas. So I too stopped going there after a point and I went back to my fatherâ€™s house.

Are you still legally Modiâ€™s wife?

Every time people take his name, I am also mentioned somewhere, even though in the background. Did you not come all the way and look all over, to find me and come and speak to me? If I was not his wife, would you have come to speak to me?

Do you feel slighted that your status as a wife has not been acknowledged by him in all these years?

No. I donâ€™t feel bad, because I know that he is doing so due to destiny and bad times. In such situations he has to say such things and also has to lie. I donâ€™t see my situation as being bad because I feel, in a way, my luck has improved too.

Why have you never remarried?

After this experience, I donâ€™t think I want to. My heart is not into it.

How did you support yourself after you moved back to your parentsâ€™ house?

My in-laws treated me well, but would never speak about the marriage. My father paid the fees for my studies and I also got some financial assistance from my brothers to continue my education. I had lost my mother when I was two years old and I lost my father two years after I started studying again and was in class 10. However, once I started my studies, I started to enjoy learning and did my SSC in 1974, and went on to complete my teachers training in 1976 and became a teacher in 1978.

How do you spend your retired days?

I enjoyed teaching and taught classes from the first to fifth grade and taught all subjects. Nowadays, I mostly start my day by 4 am and begin with prayers to Ambe Ma (Goddess Durga). I spend all my time in Bhakti (prayer). I mostly live with my elder brother Ashok Modi who lives in Unjha but I keep visiting the home of my other brother who lives in Brahman Vada near Unjha whenever I feel like. I feel I have got good brothers who have supported me.

Poor woman lives in a room without toilet, still wishing well for Modi.

If this was any other woman, would've sued Modi for spousal support, gotten millions in book deals, and gone to town exposing him.

Salute.

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Your opinion of women seems to be influenced by those you see in Delhi. Nice job painting a moral image of the average woman. These elections really do show how low politicians stoop to. I mean Azam Khan et all